Friday, November 16, 2007

Around the table

At many of Gene's seminars and lunch series, he would ask all the participants around the table or lecture hall to give their name and position. He was quite particular about people giving both their first and last names. We thought it would be nice to honor his wishes on this blog. For those who wish to, would you list your full name as well as when you met or how you knew Gene?

We have removed the registration requirement from the comments, so everyone should be able to post.

11 comments:

Anonymous
said...

My name is Michele Benzi and I havemet Gene for the first time when Iwas a PhD student at North CarolinaState University, working on mydissertation in numerical linearalgebra with Carl Meyer as an advisor. The year was 1992. Of course by then I was well aware ofGene's enormous importance andinfluence on our field. After histalk (it was on cyclic reductionwith application to iterative methodsfor the convection-diffusion equation, joint work with HowardElman) there was a receptionduring which he made a point tomeet all of us graduate students."Hi, I'm Gene Golub! What's yourname and what are you working on?"That was the beginning of a 15 yearrelation. Over the years Gene hasvisited me in Bologna, at CERFACS,at Los Alamos, and finally at Emory, and I have been his guest at Stanford. We have co-authored four papers. I have countless memories of him, and I owe Gene a lot forhis encouragement and support overthe years. For sure there have beenups and downs in our friendship(as it's true for many of us), but in the end things have always worked out, since Gene seemedunable to hold a grudge for too long. I am still having a hard timecoming to terms with his passing.Goodbye, Gene. You will always beremembered.

My name is Margot Gerritsen. I first met Gene in 1991 when I joined the SCCM program at Stanford as a graduate student. After my PhD I spent 5 years in New Zealand, and returned to Stanford in 2001. I was lucky to come back and enjoy Gene's company for several more years. Whether in his good books or in his bad books, I thoroughly enjoyed Gene, and admired him greatly. Stanford feels empty now.

My name is Vidya Rangasayee and I first met Gene in September 2002 when I started my Masters in SCCM. To me SCCM and Gene are almost synonymous. Even several years after I left Stanford with my Masters, I would make it a point to pop into his room when I visit Stanford. Gene still remembered my name and would enquire about my kids and work and encourage me to attend the SCCM seminars on Monday evenings. I won't feel the same visiting Gates Building now without Gene around.

Gene Golub's friends and colleagues will gather around the globe on Friday February 29, 2008, the date that would have been his 19th birthday, to mourn his passing and celebrate his life. In addition to a memorial and a technical day at Stanford, events will also take place in more than 30 other locations and more than 20 other countries.

Friends and colleagues of Gene are invited to attend any of these events. See http://www.cs.nyu.edu/overton/genearoundtheworld/

My name is Hongyang Chao. In 1994, Gene invited me to visit SCCM. I stayed there for a year and left for Texas. Once he sent a greeting to me and asked "How is Texas? Do you miss here?"

I went to Stanford for a very short visit of Gene in Nov. of 2005. He was very happy and looked very healthy then. We took a picture in his office. Here is the picture link.

http://ss.sysu.edu.cn/faculty/chhy/images/golub_chao2.jpg

It was a shock to know Gene has been gone. I thought I would visit him again once I got another chance. Stanford has a lot of wonderful professors. Gene is one of them. "Gene, how is the heaven? You will be missed forever."

I learned most of my notions about numerical analisys of linear operators from Gene's papers and the marvelous book with Van Loan. I included Gene'spicture among the Great mathematicians and physicists in the Gallery of my book http://www.fis.unipr.it/~enrico.onofri/#LezioniI like to look at him in a good company. Hope most of you will agree,

My name is Kedar Gajanan Kale. I graduated from Stanford in ME in 2006. I attended one of Gene's talks in the ICME seminar series in 2005. When asked about his illustrious career by the seminar organizer, he responded with a statement that stuck with me - 'If you hang in there long enough, good things will happen to you." That's admirable humility. RIP

Wow, it's hard to believe this November marks 10 years since Gene died. It feels like just a few years ago I was taking his Numerical Linear Algebra course at the Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics / Computational and Mathematical Engineering institute at Stanford University.

In addition to his wealth of knowledge and experience, he was one of the nicest professors ever. I remember him taking me out to lunch and we would tell each other about our Jewish Russian backgrounds. He wanted to meet my dad Boris Korenblum some day but it didn't work out although he emailed me from Russia in the Summer of 2007. He was exploring his roots and heritage in the old country but I never talked to him again due to his unexpected and tragic passing.

I still miss Gene a lot and I thank you for setting up this Blog. I hope we can continue to honor Gene on the 10th anniversary of his leaving us in life but his works will go on continually.